Reversal: From beginner to big shot

Dave Surico, Tribune staff reporterCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Libertyville's Jack Danilkowicz used to be a big power forward. Now he's one of the state's big power players, period.

From a humble beginning, the 6-foot-2-inch, 255-pound senior has blossomed into one of the top heavyweight wrestlers in Illinois. After starting on the freshman "A" basketball team, he moved to the mat his sophomore year in order to further his football ambitions.

He found a new passion in the wrestling room.

"I like to win--I'm a competitive person," said Danilkowicz, whose only previous wrestling experience had been as an 8th grader. "Wrestling started to have more success. As the year went on, it grew more and more inside me. And before long I couldn't wait to wrestle."

Coach Dale Eggert witnessed rapid improvement.

"At the heavyweight class, where there's a great range of athletic ability, he's at the top of the list," he said. "He looks like he's been doing it for many years."

Danilkowicz, 35-1 this season, was scheduled to wrestle 215 as a junior but moved to heavyweight when teammate David Moosman (now a Michigan football redshirt) was injured. Danilkowicz went 37-8 and won a first-round match at the individual state tournament.

"If you would have asked me before the season if I would have accomplished all that I did, I would have said that I didn't see that happening," Danilkowicz said. "As the year went on I just learned more and more. Everything just kind of fit together."

Despite off-season workouts and a summer of competition with Team Illinois, a top-three preseason ranking left Danilkowicz perplexed.

"It was a little hard at first being (ranked) so high," he said. "Coming into this season it was like, `Can I live up to what I'm ranked? Is this was where I was supposed to be?'"

Danilkowicz silenced his doubts in December at Chicagoland's biggest tournament, the Al Dvorak Memorial. He pinned top-seeded Jack Tennant of Mahomet-Seymour for the championship. Last weekend he won the heavyweight title at the Mundelein regional.

College coaches have taken notice. Danilkowicz has had contact with Northwestern, Michigan, Princeton, Maryland, Northern Illinois, Illinois and Johns Hopkins. A gaggle of Division III schools also are clamoring for his services.

But first on the agenda is this weekend's sectional at Barrington and the state tournament next weekend in Champaign.